Animation Feature: “Powerpuff Girls”

TV’s newest superheroes are sugar, spice and everything nice
By Helen Lee, syndicated Nov. 15, 1998

America’s newest superheroes may be the only crime fighters with a 7 p.m. bedtime. ”The Powerpuff Girls,” airing at 8 p.m. ET Wednesdays starting Nov. 18 on the Cartoon Network, are three adorable little kindergarteners who have to ask their teacher’s permission to go save the world.

”Professor Utonium, the father figure, genetically created the girls out of sugar, spice and everything nice,” says creator Craig McCracken, who also worked on ”Dexter’s Laboratory.” ”And then he accidentally added this extra ingredient called Chemical X, and that kind of gives them their edge, so they are perfect little girls but they’ve got this kick that gives them their superpowers.”

Living in the sleepy community of Townsville, Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup are often called by the Powerpuff signal — in the shape of a heart — to take on bad guys like Roach Coach, the double-talking Mojo Jojo, Fuzzy Lumpkins, Him and The Amoeba Boys. The girls protect their hometown, all while acting like little angels (more or less) for the benevolent and loving Professor Utonium.

The town’s characters include Townville’s mayor, whom McCracken calls ”a complete bumbling idiot”–a turn-of-the-century style character sporting a top hat and monocle. He’s the one who summons the girls, Batman-style, but his curvy blond assistant Miss Cere Bellum really runs the town. And there’s also a narrator, who is quite a character himself.

But the girls, with their big expressive eyes, no fingers and childlike innocence, completely steal the show. Blossom is the red-haired, pink-eyed leader with a red bow on her head; blue-eyed Bubbles is the blond, pigtailed one and Buttercup, with her black hair and green eyes, is the ultimate tomboy.

McCracken explains, ”Blossom is the brains — she’s the one who figures everything out and tries to keep control. She’s like a Girl Scout, always trying to do the right thing. Bubbles is the most like a little girl. She’s the most innocent — a lot of times she’d rather be playing or coloring or doing what little girls do as opposed to beating up bad guys, so she’s the purest, the cute one. Buttercup is the tough one, who doesn’t want to have to solve crimes. She just wants to punish people who have done bad, and likes to fight first.”

The idea for the show came out of a student film, ”The Whoopass Girls,” which McCracken did while a student at the California Institute of the Arts. ”I was doing a superhero film, and I didn’t have a main character. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to be the hero, but I had this drawing of these three girls and I just kind of put them in that environment,” he says.

McCracken eventually created two shorts that appeared on Cartoon Network’s ”What a Cartoon!” a few years back and are still being rerun; viewers enjoyed them so much that they kept calling in, saying they wanted to see more. When it was time for the network to do a new series, ”The Powerpuff Girls” was the obvious choice: it was being produced by the same people behind the hit ”Dexter’s Laboratory,” and people already liked the concept, according to viewer feedback.

The show’s unique look — retro, yet very modern in a trippy way — comes from McCracken’s natural drawing style. He’s inspired by ’50s design, old cartoons like ”Underdog,” the live-action ”Batman” from the ’60s, filmmaking from Japanese anime and even Keene paintings from the 1960s. ”They had the girls with the really sad eyes–but those are oil paintings,” McCracken says. ”The girls are just inspired by them in the sense that they have huge, soulful eyes – it’s kind of scary but kind of cool at the same time, so I was trying to do a cartoon-y, design-y version of them.”

The tongue-in-cheek humor of ”Powerpuff Girls” is largely character-based. ”That’s kind of what motivates me to work on anything — strong characters that live and breathe and can be in any kind of situation. That’s the fun of it,” McCracken says. ”We just try to be ironic, or clever, do a little bit of satire, and conceptual humor is always good. Sometimes a little bit of conceptual humor goes a long way, like a spice.

”Also, we sometimes try to get humor just from the execution of the filmmaking — because we’re treating the situation so seriously and so intensely, it becomes a joke, or because we’re taking a serious situation and playing it dumb, that’s the joke.”

In one of the first episodes of ”The Powerpuff Girls,” Roach Coach tries to take over Townsville with the help of roaches. This is a problem for Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup, who, like most little girls, are grossed out by bugs. In another episode, Mojo Jojo turns the entire town into dogs that must do his bidding. Bubbles has a hard time keeping her mind on the defeat of the evil monkey-like creature because whenever she sees another dog she cries “Puppy!” and wants to play with it. There’s even an appearance by the Boogie Man, who turns out to be a disco guy trying to turn the whole town into a nightclub for monsters.

Adding to the atmosphere is a techno music soundtrack and a theme song sung by Bis, McCracken’s pals, a youthful Britpop group which records on the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal label. Like the Powerpuff Girls, teen group Bis has been described as “cute and cuddly,” though the band’s music is really more punk-pop-disco.

Despite all this, McCracken isn’t exactly sure why fans love his girls so much already, though he guesses people like the characters and the jokes. The program hasn’t even aired yet, and “The Powerpuff Girls”‘ likenesses have already been already ripped off by a skateboard company in 1994 for use on boards, wheels, T-shirts and hats — a development McCracken considers very flattering. He just wants to keep making a quality program that entertains both kids and adults. He also admits, “I would like to have action figures.”